Updating Traditional Grade Calculations to push to middle and high school in response to COVID-19

[LynneM2]

With the interruption of our regular school year by COVID19, our schools like everyone else, are using e-learning (on line) to continue to provide instruction/learning tools to students. I have watched the Insider episodes and they have been helpful, however, our system does not use the Term Weighting, as referenced in all the examples, to calculate grades. We use category weighting within the grading term. For example: Class terms are Year, S1 and S2. In each term, the grades are weighted by 3 categories: Summative, Formative, Final Exam. Each category has a different percent weight.
The goal is to keep the Summative and Formative Categories and change the Final Exam category to “E-Learning”, keeping the same weight. The E learning category would be the category for all assignments entered after 3/13.
This is the plan and I need to know if this will work.
Create the E-Learning Category
Add the E-Learning Category to the Year and S2 terms in the Traditional Grade Calculation setup that was pushed to the middle and high schools
Make the Final exam category inactive (?? is this necessary)….this had a grade calculated for S1. And I will not edit anything in the Traditional Grade Calculation for S1.
I then want to push the new grade calculation to the schools…is this necessary? Once I create it and add it to the calculation, doesn’t it show up in the gradebook, making it automatically available for the teachers to select?
Once the new category is added to the grade calculation, this will require the teachers to change the category on each assignment that has been entered from E-Learning.
They shouldn’t need to recalculate since the value of the category is the same.

[Reshma]

Hi @LynneM2,

Creating E-Learning Category to the Year and S2 terms in the Traditional Grade Calculation setup is a great idea.  Inactivating a category that is previously used in a term will not impact the grades that have been already stored in that term.  However, we recommend creating a new category instead of eliminating the existing one if that has been used previously.

You would need to push the new grade calculation to the schools if teachers are not allowed to modify the grade calculations and then they would need to recalculate the grades from PTP.  

[LynneM2]

Thank you so much for the quick reponse and the direct information. I'm a little uncertain about one part - 

You said not recommended to eliminate a category. Is this referring to removing it from the grade calculation or to the list of district categories?

I know I cannot remove/elminate/delete, the unwanted category - I would make it inactive. 

But I did want to remove it from the Grade Calculation setup and replace with the new Category of E-Learning.

And if I'm unerstanding you correctly, I should be able to do this, push it back to the schools.

Once pushed back to the schools, instruct the teachers to change the category of assignments entered after 3/13 and then recalculate their grades.

I apologize for repeating myselft, I need to be certain I understand every step, as this will be a very impactful change.

Again thank you so much for your quick response. 

Please Stay Well!

[Reshma · Accepted solution]

Hi @LynneM2,

Thank you for reaching out with your query!  

When you create a new category E-learning, you need to make it available to schools.  This is when the teachers will be able to see and change the category of the assignments to "E-Learning".  I apologize for making a confusing statement there.  You are right, an unwanted category can be made inactive.  However, you don't really need to make any category as inactive. You just need to have assignments that are using the categories.

Let me take an example.  If you are using summative, formative and e-learning, the final grade will be calculated based on these 3 categories.  If you are using a category that is not mentioned in the traditional grade calculation formula, then the final grade will calculate a '0' even though there are grades entered.  This is because the final grade is looking for summative, formative and e-learning categories only.  When you change the assignment category, it is always a good practice to run the recalculation of the grade just to make sure it is using the new category.

Once the new Category of E-Learning is pushed back to the schools, you would need to instruct the teachers on changing the category of assignments entered after 3/13 and then recalculate their grades.

Please feel free to reach out if you require further assistance!  Stay safe, Lynne!

[cpettus]

What process do you use to "push" traditional grade calculations into PowerTeacher Pro? I changed the traditional grade calculation to eliminate Q4 from Y1, but PTP is still using Q4 in the calculations. Thank you.

[Reshma]

Hello @cpettus,

Thank you for posting in PowerSchool Community!

PowerSchool Community has great resources that should help you with your query.

• PowerSchool Insider / Episode 84: March 20, 2020
• PowerSchool SIS COVID-19 Tips and Considerations Webinar from 3/26/2020
• PowerSchool SIS COVID-19 Tips and Considerations Webinar from 4/02/2020